School heads praise work of students, teachers

Heads of two schools that won 2022 national scholarships and exhibitions are pleased with the performance of their students.

Harrison College’s principal Juanita Wade said the 15 scholars, including the nine exhibition winners, were able to rise against the odds, despite facing the challenges that came with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both Wade and principal of The St Michael School Tanya Harding praised the efforts of the students and their teachers especially given the challenges of working during the COVID-19 pandemic.,

In addition to having to adapt to learning online, Wade said the award winners and their peers were also facing lockdowns and being isolated in their homes.

“When we had the opportunity to come into school they took full advantage of it so they got the rewards for all of that diligence. I am really happy for them and for their families. And I am not just happy for our students, but I am really happy for all of the students because it really shows resilience and being able to manage, and not just manage, but to manage extremely well even in adversity. It really says alot about who they are,” she said.

The proud principal said that she was extremely proud that the winners of the national awards have indicated that they intend to give back to Barbados when they complete their studies in their respective fields. She said staff at Harrison always stressed the importance of giving back to the society that has given much to them.

“Of course the teachers would have worked tirelessly with them. We knew we had to do some extra work because it was not the same being at home and being in the face-to-face environment where the teacher has access to you.

“And therefore when we came back to the face-to-face environment we asked the teachers to go a little harder, to do a bit more, and they did. I am really glad to see that the staff pulled out all the stops and all around it was a whole family effort,” Wade said.

Meanwhile, SMS Principal Harding was happy with the institution’s one scholarship and two exhibition winners this year. She said the school has always produced good students, but quite often they would attend sixth form at other schools where they would achieve their awards.

“Now that we have a sixth form, we now could show Barbados we are capable of producing the scholarship winners as well. But like I said, we are all very proud and I do credit the hard work of the staff and the students themselves, especially in the last two years with all the challenges that we would have had with the COVID pandemic,” Harding said.

Barbados TODAY’s efforts to reach the principal of Queen’s College for a comment on the school’s performance, attaining five scholarships and eight exhibitions, were unsuccessful.

Christ Church Foundation and the Barbados Community College (BCC) each had one scholarship winner while a student from the college also won an Award of Excellence. (AH)